Holding Space: On Loving, Dying, and Letting Go

A look at the spiritual, emotional, and philosophical implications of end-of-life care by an elegant and literary writer who is a hospital chaplain.

As a hospital chaplain, Amy Wright Glenn has been present with those suffering from suicide, trauma, disease, and unforeseen accidents and has been witness to the intense grief and powerful insights that so often accompany loss. She weaves together memoir, philosophical inquiry, and cutting-edge research on death/dying to chronicle how we, as individuals and as a culture, handle everything from grief to mortality.

Glenn is also a professional birth doula with a deep and committed mindfulness practice who has thought deeply about the significance of human love and loss. She asks us to embrace the task of being present with what is -- through courageous and mindful expressions of compassionate presence -- and helps us to accept the fact of our own mortality on a visceral and emotional level, not simply as an intellectual abstraction.

Holding Space concludes by integrating key insights drawn from working directly with the dying into a moving and compelling meditation on the healing power of "holding space" for all involved in caring for the dying, a healing sorely needed in our culture at this time.

• Ghostbelly
• Caring for the Dying: The Doula Approach to a Meaningful Death
• Birth, Breath, and Death: Meditations on Motherhood, Chaplaincy, and Life as a Doula
• Walking the Labyrinth of My Heart: A Journey of Pregnancy, Grief and Newborn Death
• Awake at the Bedside: Contemplative Teachings on Palliative and End-of-Life Care
• Midwife for Souls: Spiritual Care for the Dying
• The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully
• Dying Well: Peace and Possibilities at the End of Life
• Counseling Skills for Companioning the Mourner: The Fundamentals of Effective Grief Counseling (The Companioning Series)
• The Conversation: A Revolutionary Plan for End-of-Life Care